Written Answers Thursday 28 August 2008

Scottish Executive

Access for Disabled People

George Foulkes (Lothians) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many railway stations have disabled access; who is responsible for ensuring compliance with legislation on disabled access at stations, and what action it is taking to improve the situation.

Stewart Stevenson: There are 346 railway stations in Scotland. At present, 204 stations are considered to be fully accessible for people with reduced mobility.

  Disabled access to the UK rail network is a matter reserved to Westminster under the auspices of equalities legislation, such as the Disability Discrimination Act. The Office of Rail Regulation is responsible for ensuring train operating companies comply with legislation relating to disabled access at train stations.

  It is anticipated five stations will be made fully accessible this year, and a further three next year, through the first phase of the Department for Transport’s Access for All programme. A further five stations will be made step free in the second phase from April 2009. The Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change recommends which stations in Scotland should be given priority for Access for All funding, following consultation with Transport Scotland.

Care of Elderly People

Brian Adam (Aberdeen North) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to enhance the level of hospital nursing care provided for elderly people.

Shona Robison: The Scottish Government continues to work with stakeholders to ensure that elderly and vulnerable people get the care they deserve.

  Delivering Care, Enabling Health, Scotland’s strategy for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals, reinforces the message that caring is fundamental to nursing services and should be at the heart of nursing practice so that patients, including the elderly, experience the best possible nursing care in hospital and at home. It encourages a culture where caring is fundamental to nursing and remains at the core of all nursing functions. Providing care to individual patients with compassion is a core part of nursing.

  Delivering Care, Enabling Health is currently under review. Caring and enabling will remain a fundamental tenet of this policy. We will be producing a revised action plan which will outline several workstreams led at a national level by the Chief Nursing Officer. These programmes of work will support nurses in continually improving the care they deliver to patients, including older people.

  Leading Better Care, the report of the review of the role of the senior charge nurse and the clinical quality indicators project, was launched by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing in June 2008. NHS boards will be implementing the revised senior charge nurse role in hospitals across NHSScotland over the next two years. This new role framework will ensure that senior charge nurses are supported in their development as guardians of quality clinical care and standards in their areas.

  A number of clinical quality indicators will be implemented in the majority of in-patient settings over the next two years. These include four generic quality indicators that are applicable across a wide variety of in-patient settings: food, fluid and nutrition; falls; pressure ulcer prevention, and monitoring and observation. Implementation of these indicators will lead to improvements in nursing care for all patients, and in particular for elderly people.

  Additionally, the national catering and nutrition specification, which was launched in July 2008 and which links directly to the senior charge nurse review, will support NHS boards in implementing the NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) clinical standards for food, fluid and nutritional care, specifically standards 3, 4 and 5 which aim to address the risk of malnutrition in hospital patients. It will also support the delivery of a healthy balanced diet for patients who are nutritionally well.

  NHS QIS recently appointed a national falls manager, for a period of two years, who will scope, lead, co-ordinate and manage a multi-agency project on the prevention and management of falls in Scotland. Also, in April 2008, I launched the falls community web space, which will allow health care professionals to access evidence and share experience and good practice relating to falls.

  The practice development unit of NHS QIS is working with NHS Education for Scotland and the University of Edinburgh to create a network to support learning and practice development in the care of older people.

Concessionary Travel

George Foulkes (Lothians) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will guarantee that free travel for elderly and disabled people will be maintained 24 hours per day, seven days per week for the next three years for all people aged 60 and over, for the whole of Scotland.

Stewart Stevenson: Night services are not currently included and they were not included by the previous administration.

Data Security

Dr Richard Simpson (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many publicly-owned laptops and memory devices have been (a) stolen and (b) lost in the last 12 months.

John Swinney: In relation to core Scottish Government (SG) directorates and close agencies using the SG network, six SG laptops have been lost during the last 12 months. Two of these were unused new machines lost in transit to their intended users by the courier company.

  The SG does not hold information about other Scottish public sector bodies as records of their equipment are maintained by them and not held centrally.

Data Security

Dr Richard Simpson (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive from which locations publicly-owned laptops and memory devices have been stolen or lost in the last 12 months.

John Swinney: In relation to core Scottish Government (SG) directorates and close agencies using the SG network, six laptops have been lost during the last 12 months. Two were new unused devices lost in transit to their intended users by the courier company. Three were lost while owners were travelling. One was stolen in a house burglary. Information about other public sector bodies is not held centrally.

Data Security

Dr Richard Simpson (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many publicly-owned laptops and memory devices, which have been stolen or lost in the last 12 months, have contained NHS patient information and whether this information was (a) password protected, (b) encrypted and (c) considered necessary to be transferred to a laptop or memory device.

John Swinney: The Scottish Government (SG) does not maintain records of IT equipment other than that used within its core directorates.

  None of the SG laptops lost during the last 12 months contained NHS patient information.

  It is the responsibility of individual NHS boards to maintain records in relation to their own equipment and to report and investigate in line with their own local policies and procedures.

Data Security

Dr Richard Simpson (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what type of password protection and encryption it uses on publicly-owned laptops and memory devices.

John Swinney: In relation to the core Scottish Government (SG) directorates and close agencies using the SG network, the Scottish Government password-protects and encrypts devices to the standards specified and required by Cabinet Office Communications Electronic Security Group for membership of the government secure intranet. Information about other Scottish public sector bodies, who are responsible for their own processes, is not held centrally.

Dentistry

Marlyn Glen (North East Scotland) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether the target set for NHS boards, in Better Health, Better Care: Action Plan, that 80% of all three to five-year-olds should be registered with a NHS dentist by 2010-11 also means that a target of 80% registration has been set for the same age group in each Community Health Partnership area in each NHS board.

Shona Robison: It is for NHS boards to manage the delivery of the target through their local delivery plans and there is therefore no explicit national target set at the level of Community Health Partnership areas.

Energy Efficiency

Mike Rumbles (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-12447 by Stewart Stevenson on 14 May 2008, when it will launch its consultation on improving the energy performance of existing domestic buildings.

Mike Rumbles (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-12447 by Stewart Stevenson on 14 May 2008, when it will launch its consultation on improving the energy performance of existing non-domestic buildings.

Mike Rumbles (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-10528 by Stewart Stevenson on 13 March 2008, how it defines as soon as possible.

Stewart Stevenson: The Scottish Government plans two phases of consultation on the energy performance of existing buildings. We intend to launch a consultation on existing non-domestic buildings in September 2008, once the Parliament has reconvened. We plan to issue a further consultation paper on improving the energy performance of existing homes later in the year.

Enterprise

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether, if Pringle of Scotland ceases manufacturing in Hawick, it will challenge the right of the company to continue to badge its products with the lion rampant and the Pringle of Scotland trading name by making a referral to the Department of Trade and Industry and the Office of Fair Trading under Statutory Instrument 2008 No.1277 The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations of 2008.

John Swinney: The statutory instrument does not confer a function on Scottish ministers to make referrals to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. The question of whether Pringle of Scotland is in breach of the terms of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs) is for the Trading Standards Services and the Office of Fair Trading as the enforcement authorities and, ultimately, the Crown Office for the purpose of establishing whether criminal proceedings should be brought.

  It will be up to the local authority’s trading standards service to make a decision about investigations into possible breaches of the CPRs.

Maternity Services

Mary Scanlon (Highlands and Islands) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many pregnant women were transported to an NHS facility other than the one planned for the birth in each month of the last three years, broken down by NHS board.

Shona Robison: The information requested is not held centrally. Whilst data on this subject has not routinely been collected in the past, the perinatal collaborative transport study, which was published by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland, on 27 July 2008, sought to collect this type of data over a six month period to February 2007.

  Through the Maternity Services Action Group, we will now consider options on the best way to collate national data on this subject.

Maternity Services

Mary Scanlon (Highlands and Islands) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many newborn infants were transferred to an NHS facility other than the one planned for the birth in order to receive neonatal care in each month of the last three years.

Shona Robison: The information requested is not held centrally. Whilst data on this subject has not routinely been collected in the past, the perinatal collaborative transport study, which was published by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland, on 27 July 2008, sought to collect this type of data over a six month period to February 2007.

  Through the Maternity Services Action Group, we will now consider options on the best way to collate national data on this subject.

Maternity Services

Mary Scanlon (Highlands and Islands) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to NHS Quality Improvement Scotland’s Perinatal Collaborative Transport Study why some maternity units reported that no cots were available when occupancy rates were less than 70%.

Shona Robison: The Scottish Government is concerned that units are closed to admissions when they are not already full. We urgently need to fully understand the reasons behind this, and will consider ways in which robust data can be collected, with a view to making improvements to this service.

  The Maternity Services Action Group will meet on 24 September 2008 to discuss the perinatal collaborative transport study, and will be asked to recommend a course of action to specifically address concerns highlighted in the report.

Maternity Services

Mary Scanlon (Highlands and Islands) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive which intensive care nursing units for infants adhere to the British Association of Perinatal Medicine’s guideline of one-to one nursing.

Shona Robison: The information requested is not held centrally. It is a matter for each NHS board to plan and organise maternity care provision to meet local need, ensuring that that the most appropriate professional is the care provider at any given time.

  The Scottish Government recommends that NHS boards adopt the neonatal levels of care model set out in table 21 of the A Framework for Maternity Services in Scotland, when considering the provision of immediate and neonatal care.

  NHS Scotland is currently developing and testing a national neonatal workforce and workload tool to identify nursing needs for this vulnerable group of babies.

  The tool has had its first test, is currently being refined and will then be tested and modified prior to implementation.

Ministerial Visits

John Park (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what ministerial visits have been undertaken by Scottish ministers in each constituency in Mid Scotland and Fife since May 2007, broken down by minister, venue and date, and whether any other ministers or MSPs were in attendance.

John Swinney: The information sought could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

NHS Staff

Dr Richard Simpson (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many additional junior doctor posts will be established to maintain service levels when the European Working Time Directive, which will require a reduction in waiting time from 56 to 48 hours, is implemented and, if no additional posts are to be created, what alternative plans the Executive has put in place to meet service need.

Nicola Sturgeon: We do not anticipate that any additional junior doctor posts will be created as a direct consequence of the Working Time Regulations (WTR) requirement for average working hours to be reduced from 56 to 48 by 1 August 2009.

  Compliance with the reduction in working hours is the responsibility of NHS boards as employers. At the request of Scottish ministers, all NHSScotland boards have provided information on how they plan to achieve compliance with WTR for their doctors training. We will continue to monitor progress on this issue.

  The Scottish Government seeks to support the service in this by issuing guidance, disseminating information on good practice on work carried out across Scotland and elsewhere in the UK and holding seminars. The Scottish Government continues to offer practical support to help NHSScotland to invest in the service and workforce modernisation which is necessary if compliance is to be attained. This includes:

  The creation of new and extended non-medical roles to help support the decrease in working hours for junior doctors;

  The introduction of the Hospital at Night concept;

  The expansion of the SAS (Speciality) Grade Doctor;

  Service Redesign, and

  Reshaping the medical workforce – a project aiming to improve longer term medical workforce planning by shifting towards service delivery by trained doctors.

  Workforce planning is firmly embedded into the work of NHS boards and is becoming more integrated into the wider planning function with boards continuing to build up their knowledge and expertise to meet the challenges of the future where the workforce is key to achieving change.

NHS Staff

Rhoda Grant (Highlands and Islands) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive which island NHS boards currently pay staff Distant Islands Allowance and what the total cost has been in each of the last three years, broken down by NHS board area.

Nicola Sturgeon: Distant Islands Allowance is paid to eligible staff by NHS Highland, NHS Orkney, NHS Shetland and NHS Western Isles. Total costs for each board have been as follows:

  

 NHS Board
2005-06 £000
2006-07 £000
2007-08 £000


 NHS Highland
 48
 57
 56


 NHS Orkney
 371
 523
 567


 NHS Shetland
 840
 840
 840


 NHS Western Isles
 579
 712
 725

Public Private Partnerships

Des McNulty (Clydebank and Milngavie) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether the rates of interest being paid to lenders in relation to the Aberdeen and Falkirk NPDO schools projects are lower or higher than the rates being paid in relation to recent PPP school projects such as those in East Dunbartonshire, West Dunbartonshire, Perth and Kinross, Dumfries and Galloway and West Lothian.

John Swinney: The rates of interest being paid to lenders in relation to specific NPD/PPP projects will depend on various factors, such as market conditions at the time of procurement and the nature of the project features, so it is not possible to provide a direct comparison of the kind requested.

Road Safety

Patrick Harvie (Glasgow) (Green): To ask the Scottish Executive whether there are plans to conduct further research into the improvements in road safety that can be made through the introduction of 20mph speed limits.

Stewart Stevenson: There are no such plans at present.

Roads

Jamie McGrigor (Highlands and Islands) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will make public all relevant information regarding the repair work in the area of the A83 road affected by the landslide at the Rest and Be Thankful in November 2007, including technical survey reports and the minutes of meetings held on the subject.

Stewart Stevenson: I have asked Transport Scotland to place copies of appropriate papers on the Transport Scotland website as they become available.

Scottish Futures Trust

Des McNulty (Clydebank and Milngavie) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-13276 by John Swinney on 3 June 2008, where the two community hubs identified as early projects developed by the Scottish Futures Trust are located.

John Swinney: The location of the two community hubs identified as early projects for the Scottish Futures Trust will be announced in late autumn 2008.

Scottish Government Ministers

George Foulkes (Lothians) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of Scottish ministers have their principal residence in the area covered by the former Strathclyde Regional Council.

John Swinney: 28% of Scottish Government ministers have their principal residence in the area covered by the former Strathclyde Regional Council.

Scottish Government Ministers

George Foulkes (Lothians) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-15148 by John Swinney on 7 August 2008, whether the car parking fines listed in the answer were incurred during the course of ministerial business and, if so, which ministers were involved.

John Swinney: The government car service does not routinely keep a record of which of their customers has been the passenger when a car parking fine has been incurred. It is not therefore possible to provide the breakdown of information requested.

Special Advisers

John Park (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of its special advisers have previously been employed by the Scottish National Party.

John Swinney: Information about the previous employment of special advisers is considered to be personal in terms of the Data Protection Act 1998 and cannot be disclosed.

Tourism

Des McNulty (Clydebank and Milngavie) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-14759 by Jim Mather on 23 July 2008, what the terms of reference are for the planned research into the economic impact of wildlife tourism and who will carry out the research.

Des McNulty (Clydebank and Milngavie) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-14759 by Jim Mather on 23 July 2008, what categories of wildlife tourism will be covered in the planned research into the economic impact of wildlife tourism.

Des McNulty (Clydebank and Milngavie) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-14759 by Jim Mather on 23 July 2008, whether shooting and stalking will be included in the planned research into the economic impact of wildlife tourism.

Des McNulty (Clydebank and Milngavie) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-14759 by Jim Mather on 23 July 2008, when the planned research into the economic impact of wildlife tourism will (a) start and (b) finish.

Jim Mather: The Scottish Government and VisitScotland recognise that wildlife tourism makes a valuable and growing contribution to Scottish tourism, and thus to sustainable economic growth. We are currently studying the feasibility and costs of commissioning research to assess the overall value of wildlife tourism, and a detailed timetable for the study and terms of reference, including coverage of the study, have not yet been prepared. However, we would expect to commission the study before the end of this year, with the primary field research capturing data during the course of 2009, and to report thereafter.